Arriving in Vernazza

Arriving in Vernazza was a welcome change. Not only were we ecstatic to be in Italy, but relived to be off the inferno of a train that held us captive. Reluctantly following Rick Steves' advice (yeah mom, he's proved to not be the travel god that you say he is), we arrived with no reservations for a room. The logic being that arriving in this particular set of towns with no arrangements is beneficial for two reasons: rooms (not hotels) are everywhere and seeing a room right then gives you the upper hand to either accept or walk away to the next if need be.

Beginning at the train station, be walked down a narrow street and into the center of town. After two minutes, we soon found out that the center actually also doubles as the end of town and the beach, and the marina, since beyond it, there is nothing else but cliffs and Mediterranean. Vernazza was so small that someone with a even a moderately good arm could stand on one end and have their ball caught on the other side.

Realizing that our options might be more limited than we thought, we got to it, asking bars who had rooms, people in the street who called friends, and ringing every bell we saw that had a sign above it advertising rooms. On our third connection with a real person, we were greeted by a little old lady who quickly led us down an alley to a teeny tiny room with a teeny tiny bathroom and our very own teeny tiny refrigerator. Great digs for girls who have been virtually camping and living off of sandwiches for a month.

The woman spoke no English, so Amy stepped in with the Italian asking about particulars and I towered over them, happily accepting my role as "bad American cop" to Amy's "good culturally- sensitive cop." They are carrying on in Italian, sharing pleasantries, talking about the room, and literally all I'm interested in is "how much?" How much is this teeny tiny palace is going to cost us? Amy tells me in English and I counter: "Drive her down," I say. "Ask if there is a discount for multiple nights, see if she'll crack!" And what do you know, she does. We bring her down from 75 Euro a night to 50. A savings of 100 Euro total and to us, a small fortune -- what we would spend in three days.

Feeling good about our hard bargaining, we settled in and went for dinner, a real dinner, to celebrate the start of five weeks in this sideways country. Our restaurant was near the ocean, and as we looked out, it was hard to believe that we weren't in the Caribbean and that Italy could claim ownership of mountins that meet the sea and water so blue and clear you can see right down to the bottom. Truly an amazing place, and all ours for 50 Euro a night.